Gurman: Apple wants to update Siri to understand commands without "Hello, Siri"

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple is working on an updated interface for its Siri voice assistant.

Here's What We Know

Right now, calling the virtual assistant requires saying the phrase "Hey Siri." Going forward, the company wants the assistant to understand phrases and commands without a greeting, that is, only after saying the word "Siri."

"The company is working on an initiative to drop the «Hey in the trigger phrase so that a user only needs to say „Siri"— along with a command. While that might seem like a small change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work. The complexity involves Siri being able to understand the singular phrase «Siri» in multiple different accents and dialects. Having two words—"Hey Siri"—increases the likelihood of the system properly picking up the signal"""The company is working on an initiative to drop the «Hey in the trigger phrase so that a user only needs to say „Siri"—along with a command. While that might seem like a small change, making the switch is a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work. The complexity involves Siri being able to understand the singular phrase «Siri» in multiple different accents and dialects. Having two words—"Hey Siri"—increases the likelihood of the system properly picking up the signal", Gurman explains.

But that won't happen anytime soon - Gurman expects the change to go into effect next year or even 2024.

Apple is also working to further integrate Siri into third-party services and apps to give users more context and help.

Source: MacRumors